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An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty Reviews

I will be the first to admit that some won't appreciate the complexity of this movie, although all have lived it. Cookie cutter movies have become so much the norm that it is a forgone conclusion that it should have a happy ending. Thank you sooooo much for exploring heartbreak, unfulfilled expectations, mistakes, and bad assumptions that really are the reality of love. Damn good romance!

A beautiful journey into the minds of (boy) Terrance and (girl) Nimak. The film navigates through the inner thoughts and insecurities of Terrance (which mirrors "every straight man" that would be in that situation), this is displayed with gorgeous animation. The film is a about Terrance's experience with Nimak while they were dating. She was aware that he was a filmmaker but didn't realize the film was about their relationship. Parts of the film has excerpts of his 2012 film "How Would You Feel". In many ways the film over examines their relationship to where it becomes exhausting. This adds more reality to the story because most people can relate to the feelings Terrance has for Nimak. At one point or another we've all had insecure thoughts of how we feel for someone else. This shows a very vulnerable and beautiful side to love and how Terrance sees things. Most of the film is seen through his prospective. The film is both simple and complicated much like love.

Begins marvelously and continues from there. However, the overanalyzing nature of it all begins to drone on after a while. While artistically perfect, I wouldn't call this the best of indie filmmaking.

Through the urban eyes and Afrocentric illustrations of Terence's view of the pursuit of love, I was stricken with reflective pause of how his details of his enamored state of the young damsel became- it was artistically delivered.

For some of us whom are met with apprehension in reading a dry text on the "isms" of love and relationships, this short is an invigorating breath into that same foray with a contemporary and poetic intertwining that any onlooker would appreciate. Especially for those that consistently guile blatant emotional encounters.

"I voluntarily grew closer to her magic in which, it became a dance I grew tired of." The tight blacksmithing descriptions if his frustrations of a lack of reciprocity was absolutely gorgeous, something that literary obsessors would appreciate.

Visually interesting, but the sophomoric pretentious and repetitive pseudo- intellectual musings on love that kept on going and going, made the film very boring after a while, and started to grate on my nerves. Too self-indulgent to be interesting to anyone but the filmmakers, and it really doesn't seem to have a point. One might get a couple of amused chuckles out of it, but nothing more.

This film is an engaging onslaught of poetic dialogue and character studies. The speed at which the movie runs and is narrated would be too much overstimulation if it weren't for the jawdroppingly beautiful animations thrown in at the perfect times.

While the movie doesn't paint a clear sense of Nance's emotional side, one thing is certain: He is an artist with creativity to spare. This effort may not have been wholly successful, but it's a promising start to what could be a thrilling career.

Terence Nance is clearly a vibrant, sensual, introspective and gifted film artist. I loved this film. But viewers should be warned that this is not so much a "film" as it is a work of "film poetry" --- One can easily imagine watching this at MOMA. It is art, but it is not "film" as most of us perceive it. Which is, of course, a major part of its charm. It is also awesome to see an intelligent work by and about African Americans. It is also beautifully romantic -- and romantic from a male-perspective. This is also an unusual thing to see reflected in film.

An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty should perhaps have been retitled "An Overthinking of Her Everything". Developed over the course of six years by writer, director, and star Terence Nance, the aesthetically fluid film is an autobiographical examination of an idyllic relationship he always seems to be on the cusp of, but was never mature enough to handle. Ponderous and ever-present narration (told by The Wire's Reg E. Cathey) informs us that the film will be split into two chapters, and further divided into multiple chapters, embedded within is Nance's 2010 short film, How Would You Feel? If having the film's structure explained sounds like a good way to take the audience right out of the experience, then you'd be right. It shows a lack of trust in the audience and in the clarity of his own story, and that need to excruciatingly detail every aspect kills any personal insights Nance is trying to reflect.

Once we get past the unnecessarily complicated intro, Nance's keenly observational exploration of urban relationships, told with seemingly random comic asides and insights, suggest a kinship to the early works of Spike Lee. The first chapter details what appears to be another day, as Nance tries to arrange an evening engagement with the girl of his dreams, Namik Winter, but finding it difficult to do so for one reason or another. The loopy time structure repeatedly folds in on itself, tediously presenting the same scene with new information. Nance has a lot to say about himself, but struggles to get right down to it. When he finally does, it comes out in floods and never stops. An exhausting flow of self-examination is thankfully broken up by truly inventive visuals as Nance switches up the medium at a whim, combining hand drawn animation, claymation, and gritty archival footage. Unquestionably this is one of the most original films of the year, but as Nance continually switches gears and adds more artistic flourishes, he overwhelms us with information in an attempt to make his story unique.

Nance bravely presents a "warts and all" version of himself, an immature Bohemian manchild who both pushes the women who love him away, and pines for the ones who show the least interest. Namik gets the better end of the deal as she's the vision of a strong, intelligent, diverse African-American woman. Switching into documentary mode with a heavy reliance on archival footage, we see Nance as he presents a version of the film to a private audience, all without Namik's permission. When he confronts her with it, she expresses displeasure at it the one-sided nature of the story, but she doesn't seem too upset at having her life put on display. In fact, she doesn't really seem to care as much as Nance tries to make it appear, perhaps to try and drum up some tension that is sorely lacking. An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty works as a beautiful visual patchwork quilt, and there's a lot to admire, but it probably would have worked better as a short subject than a feature film.

An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty should perhaps have been retitled "An Overthinking of Her Everything". Developed over the course of six years by writer, director, and star Terence Nance, the aesthetically fluid film is an autobiographical examination of an idyllic relationship he always seems to be on the cusp of, but was never mature enough to handle. Ponderous and ever-present narration (told by The Wire's Reg E. Cathey) informs us that the film will be split into two chapters, and further divided into multiple chapters, embedded within is Nance's 2010 short film, How Would You Feel? If having the film's structure explained sounds like a good way to take the audience right out of the experience, then you'd be right. It shows a lack of trust in the audience and in the clarity of his own story, and that need to excruciatingly detail every aspect kills any personal insights Nance is trying to reflect.

Once we get past the unnecessarily complicated intro, Nance's keenly observational exploration of urban relationships, told with seemingly random comic asides and insights, suggest a kinship to the early works of Spike Lee. The first chapter details what appears to be another day, as Nance tries to arrange an evening engagement with the girl of his dreams, Namik Winter, but finding it difficult to do so for one reason or another. The loopy time structure repeatedly folds in on itself, tediously presenting the same scene with new information. Nance has a lot to say about himself, but struggles to get right down to it. When he finally does, it comes out in floods and never stops. An exhausting flow of self-examination is thankfully broken up by truly inventive visuals as Nance switches up the medium at a whim, combining hand drawn animation, claymation, and gritty archival footage. Unquestionably this is one of the most original films of the year, but as Nance continually switches gears and adds more artistic flourishes, he overwhelms us with information in an attempt to make his story unique.

Nance bravely presents a "warts and all" version of himself, an immature Bohemian manchild who both pushes the women who love him away, and pines for the ones who show the least interest. Namik gets the better end of the deal as she's the vision of a strong, intelligent, diverse African-American woman. Switching into documentary mode with a heavy reliance on archival footage, we see Nance as he presents a version of the film to a private audience, all without Namik's permission. When he confronts her with it, she expresses displeasure at it the one-sided nature of the story, but she doesn't seem too upset at having her life put on display. In fact, she doesn't really seem to care as much as Nance tries to make it appear, perhaps to try and drum up some tension that is sorely lacking. An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty works as a beautiful visual patchwork quilt, and there's a lot to admire, but it probably would have worked better as a short subject than a feature film.